Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 75

THE JOURNEY
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the system.I initiated internal audit to cleanse the system and spent a lot of time on club matters, but it was very tough.
I also discovered corruption in the Club's shop and ultimately the Manager of the shop was found to be the culprit and later I also found the corrupt practices being followed.
Things came to a head when two vacancies in the club's Trust Board caused by the death of two trustees had to be filled. I wanted to know the procedure for filling up those vacancies. Vasant Vaidya and Jaswant Thacker told me that the normal practice was to approach the Governor of Mumbai, who was the formal Chairman of the club. Appointing trustees was his prerogative. He would generally ask us for four or five names in confidence and choose from those. Air Marshall Latif was the Governor at that time. I met him along with Jaswant Thacker and Vasant Vaidya. He asked us to submit four names to choose from. After a lot of deliberation, Vaidya, Thakkar and I chose four names from among the members of the club - two Hindus, a Parsi and a Muslim. When the Governor did not respond for a month, we contacted him again. He then gave us the names of Pratapsinh Vissanji and Pravinchandra Gandhi to be made trustees.
Although the trustees had been appointed through the conventional procedure, some disappointed members of the committee kicked up a row.They asked for all the names submitted to the Governor. I declined to divulge that information. One member remarked that he could not accept my version of the facts and unfortunately both Mr. Thakkar and Mr. Vasant Vaidya remained silent instead of supporting me. The controversy upset me as my integrity was being questioned, and I sent in my resignation. I was already facing opposition to my stand that a member of the club should never be appointed its secretary. My resignation did make the members of the general body unhappy. They wanted to know why I was quitting. Since I had decided to move on, I did not want to go into it.
The foundation of a clever country is its education system - Robert James Lee Hawke